THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE-INTEGRATION PRACTICES IN SERVICE INNOVATION PROJECTS

Services comprise an increasingly bigger proportion of contemporary economies, making service innovation more relevant than ever. However, the practices and processes related to the utilisation of knowledge for service development are not very well understood in this context. To narrow this gap, this study focuses on how Knowledge-Intensive Business Service (KIBS) firms utilise knowledge-integration practices in different phases of the service-innovation projects they carry out for their customers. A multiple-case study with in-depth qualitative data is conducted, focusing on four case firms in the Finnish KIBS sector. Case-by-case and cross-case analyses are reflected against four categories of knowledge-integration practices: Rules and directives, sequencing, decision-making, and group problem-solving and routines. The results show the detailed evidence on how these practices are utilised in different types of service-innovation projects. Furthermore, two generic types of service-innovation projects are identified with different implications for knowledge-integration and problem-solving.